San Diego’s Scripps Pier records highest ocean temperature in its 102-year history

SNIP: The sea surface temperature at the Scripps Pier in La Jolla hit 78.6 degrees on Wednesday, the highest reading in the pier’s 102-year history, according to UC San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography.

The reading broke the previous record of 78.4 degrees, which was set in 1931.

Scripps Oceanography officials say that local ocean temperatures have been running above normal for several days at that spot, but the record was not broken until Wednesday.

The institute has been taking sea surface temperatures there since August 1916 as part of its scientific research.

Ocean temperatures also have been above average along the entire San Diego County coastline for much of the summer, and the reason isn’t clear. The region is not experiencing an El Nino, which tends to produce very warm ocean temperatures in the summer and fall.

Daniel Rudnick, a Scripps oceanographer, said Thursday, “Southern California coastal waters have been anomalously warm since the beginning of 2014, when we experienced a marine heatwave.

“This event was popularly known as ‘the blob’. The following year, during 2015-2016, we had one of the strongest El Nino’s of the the last few decades and the local ocean continued warming.

“Since then SoCal waters are still anomalously warm — that is the water has not returned to temperatures that were normal in the previous seven years.’’